The Best Melbourne Wedding Photography

Point Ormond

Point Ormond is completely picturesque. The mild climb up the hill offers many opportunities for creative shoots with all the dramatic beach-side elements: the sky, the sea breeze and the waves crashing on the shore below. Moreover it it is accessible and well-resourced with paths, rocky outcrops and bridges. Serendipity Photography loves the variation of light around the bay, and Point Ormond, graced by views all around the bay, including panoramic views of the city of Melbourne especially has an aspect all it’s own for creative and adventurous couples.

Top inner Melbourne location for creative wedding photography, Point Ormond located on the Elwood foreshore is a local landmark in the City of Port Phillip. Situated on a raised headland, the reserve provides exceptional views of the Melbourne skyline and a sweeping vista along Elwood’s sandy beaches. The picturesque parkland offers wonderful photography shoot opportunities. Sprawling well manicured lawns are graced by thirty nine indigenous plant species, including Drooping Sheoak, Sea Box and White Correa.

The location has a varied and fascinating history. Point Ormond has been tied to Melbourne’s development since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Before it was colonised Point Ormond was used as a site for social gatherings by the local indigenous population, the Bunurong. In 1840 Point Ormond became a Melbourne’s first quarantine station when the Glen Huntly sailed into Hobson’s Bay bearing the dreadful yellow flag! Charles La Trobe immediately dispatched soldiers to insure that Captain Buchanan would dock his barque at what was then called “Little Red Bluff“and maintain the integrity and separation of the campsite for two bitterly cold months.

A bonfire night was held on Point Ormond the night that Port Phillip District was separated from New South Wales in 1851, a pivotal moment in Melbourne history — celebrations marked the creation of the Colony of Victoria, were held on the Point. A later commemoration of this event took place there on July 1, 1862; Victorian troops put up a mock battle between a presumed invading Austrian contingent and the local Victorian Volunteer Corps, including a local St Kilda regiment at Point Ormond in front of approximately 20,000 spectators. This Victorian regiment had been established in 1854 in response to fears of a Russian invasion during the Crimean War. In the 1890s Point Ormond was mined for coal by two remarkable women under the direction of a spirit called ‘Pat’; Thomas Bent had also ordered further removal of material to make way for the Brighton railway; all this material was used to further fill in the surrounding swampland which, helped along by the drainage serviced by the Elwood canal, became the fashionable bayside residential district of Elwood.

Elwood has grown around this hill since late 1800’s and Point Ormond has served as a beacon of one sort or another ever since. In more recent years Point Ormond has played host to a bicentennial log-fire beacon.

Wedding couples are indeed fortunate that Point Ormond has had a lucky escape — Melbourne’s very own Sir Henry Bolte legislated that a commercial restaurant — completely serviced by acres of carparking and a large driveway carved into the hill no doubt — be built on the the top of Point Ormond! Its beauty has graced our screens in a number of films, the spectacular sunsets having attracted the eye of film makers and featured in scenes from On the Beach and A Man of Flowers.

We welcome you to look at other beautiful parks and piers around Melbourne, photographed by Serendipity: